Well, here’s a hard place to be.
His world is now a movie, and he’s trapped in scenes playing out in his mind. He has to be the hero, the clock is ticking and he must save the people he loves. Nobody believes him, but has proof that can change everything, if he can only get to it. He’s frantic, desperate, determined. They’re watching him, controlling him, and he has to speak in codes and hide in shadows. He says, “we all know how this ends.”
No. We don’t know how this ends. I’ve played out every outcome in my mind, but I don’t know how it ends. Will it be a knock on the door from a police officer to tell us they found his body? A call from the hospital that he OD’ed? A clip on the news of an arrest made for a violent crime? Is it suicide, homicide, disappearance? Will he call me a few months from now from jail? Will he run to Mexico? Will he have some moment of clarity and actually get help and have a beautiful transformation and healing of his body and soul?? I pray, over and over, that it is this last outcome, as far off as that feels in this moment.
I hate this. I hate trying to remember the last solid, good conversation we had. His last genuine laugh. The last moment he did an annoying brother thing to me. The last good hug. These lasts…. Are they THE LAST? I would have held them tighter! I would have etched them harder into my memory. I didn’t know!! It isn’t fair!
I’m many things- I’m angry, I’m shocked, I’m despondent. I’m grieving. Addiction, psychosis- – it feels like death. But it’s death with hope twining all through it- which feels just… I can’t describe it. It’s gut wrenching, every day. I don’t want it without the hope, though. I just don’t want any of it at all. I wish it was just LIFE.
I don’t know what to say anymore. We’re just waiting, and that’s all we can do. Waiting. Because we don’t know how it ends.
I am not sure why it’s so hard to find the words that match this moment in my life, but I feel compelled to do it. It’s very frustrating, and i keep putting it off because I’m waiting for better words. But they aren’t coming. So I’ll have to be satisfied with the fumbling that’s to come.
Tomorrow, I sit in a chair across from brother, and we talk about how we got here. I’ve been running through questions in my mind that the therapist might ask- typical of me, overpreparing and overthinking. I feel pretty sure she’ll ask, how has Trey’s drug abuse affected you personally? The first and strongest answer is what it does to my parents. The version of them I get is different because of what he does. The consequences to them emotionally, mentally, and financially are devastating. And that angers and hurts me. And that’s personal. It’s what matters the most to me about this situation.
But maybe that’s the easy answer. So I’m trying to look a little deeper. How am I affected… me…
So I go to the lowest times, the times I am envisioning his funeral. Looking at his body in a coffin. And I try to taste a little of that pain to see if it’s something I can bear when the time comes. I try to shift a little of it onto myself right now, so that it doesn’t sink me when it’s a reality. I look at his face, his hollow cheeks, his still chest, this quiet and empty receptacle that has no soul, no bit of him left that is my brother. In his nicest suit, his hair combed and hands folded, but there is no piece to hold on to, no ears to hear me, no way to reach him or connect. There is nothing there, no movement, no energy… but around me, there is much to imagine. Life wails and grieves and bends outside that coffin. I listen to the sound of my mother’s anguished crying in my head, so that I’m braced for it when it comes. I look at my dad’s eyes, that will be haunted for every day of the rest of his life. I see my little grandmother, bent over to kiss the cold cheek of a grandson she should never have outlived. And my nephew, numb, speechless, who is suddenly left adrift and confused and scared in an ocean of grief he was never meant to sail.
it’s the wreckage at the end of the storm. This is the aftermath. And I don’t know if we’re all strong enough for that moment. So that’s what I live with. That’s how I’m affected. That picture is never very far from me. It blazes from the future, and even when I close my eyes and look away from it, it’s imprinted in my eyelids.
So I’m ready with my answer, if she asks it. I’m ready with it, if he’ll hear it. It’s all I have to give him, honestly. This picture- a warning, a glimpse of the day that comes after the storm. The first day he’s gone, and the rest of us stay here in a room with his body and our brokenness. I’m hopeful that if he sees it right now, it will become a day that no one ever sees in truth, in reality. I’m hoping that he’ll wake up, like Ebenezer Scrooge after his last ghostly visitation, and throw open the window and shout for joy that it isn’t true YET.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”
It can be different. I do believe it, and I’m holding on to that. Praying he finds a way to rewrite the ending of his story.
my brother is fighting his demons again. Two years they stood at bay. During that two years, we got to know him, laugh with him, be loved by him. See his heart and what he wants in life. Celebrate his victories. Wrestle with obstacles. I got to see him be a dad, a son, an uncle, a farmer, a student. A chicken keeper. A brother.
i don’t know how we ended up back here. But I felt the slip away. I felt the pulling back. And then, just like that, he was gone. Like he just stepped backward, and off a cliff. The life he worked so hard to build just fell of the landscape and there was nothing there anymore. An empty space where he used to be.
drugs make a person disappear. It swallows them whole. Everything that makes that person who they are is just enveloped by this other thing, this stranger, who doesn’t care about you. Drugs don’t care if it’s your birthday, or your chemo appointment, or your wedding. They simply. don’t. care. Whatever life you have and whatever it is that you are is consumed by this darkness.
i don’t know if we’ll get him back. Every day, his opportunities to extricate himself from this nightmare shrink. There are only a few ways left out, and he refuses to reach out and grab them. There’s nothing left to say. No appeals we haven’t made. We’ve prayed this thing up and down, and we are still here. I’m out of ideas, and we’re out of time.
afraid: I am afraid he’ll die. I’m afraid I’ll never see him again breathing. I’m afraid my parents will never recover from it. I’m afraid that when the smoke clears, it’ll only be my sisters and I left standing in the smoldering rubble of what used to be our family.
hurt: It’s the moment that he lifted his foot to take the step off the cliff. Before the drugs clouded and corrupted, and he was still Trey. In that moment, we weren’t enough. The best we had to offer wasn’t enough. He chose to disappear his life into the drugs. He left us. Left everything. And I’m hurt that my parents then echo that. They are so lost in his addiction, that we fade away to shadows for them. We’re not enough for them, and none of us are enough for him. I am grieving the loss of half my family right now.
and angry: that he would so abuse and torture us all. Especially my parents. That he would wring their hearts out this way, that he has given them this bitter cup to drink from. That he has stolen their peace and their joy. That he has turned his back on all of us, abandoning every bit of the goodness here. Angry that in their hearts, my parents may walk off that cliff with him. And we will be left with a shell of who they were.
so that’s where I am. Maybe I’ll delete this, maybe not. Nobody is hear to read it, and maybe it’ll help to have it excised from my heart. Brought into the light. Maybe I’ll see something there that helps forge a way through. Or maybe I just want to remember this moment, even this pain, because it means he’s still here and there’s still hope. Because it feels like there’s a day coming when that might not be true anymore. A day when there’s no more distance to fall. A day when he disappears, and never has a chance to find his way back again.
I am the leper. The prodigal son. The woman at the well.
I am the one asking for the crumbs from the table. Touching the hem of His robe. I hold their coats, I throw the stones, I complain about the manna. I am swallowed by the whale. I pick the fruit. I wander from the fold. It’s my voice that cries, “crucify Him.”
I’m every broken, miserable, lost soul in those pages.
Every bad thing you can say about me, is true. Probably much worse. I know myself far better than you ever could, and whatever condemnation you could hurl at me, well, it FITS. I’ve earned it, and will continue to heap it rightly on my head until I take my last breath. I have no defense. No justification. All the evidence you lay out is irrefutable; I am condemned by every action and thought that comes from a sinful heart in this sinful world. There is no hope in anything I could say, or do. I bear the weight of every accusation you can levy.
Oh, but my friend. There is GOD.
I laid in the muck of the pig sty, in the belly of the whale, in the shadows of the Garden, and God found me. All that was wrong about me, and in me, He swept away like a mighty wind. I did nothing to deserve this. NOTHING. Let me proclaim it! I didn’t do better, I didn’t earn His mercy. I couldn’t lift a finger to help myself, because the accuser is right, and he always will be. I’m guilty and I deserve nothing, and I can DO nothing.
But He came. And He looked at every terrible, horrible stain in me, buried deep in my bones, and He just wiped them all away. As far as the east is from the west. He lifted my head from the ground. He healed the sickness in me. He wiped my blind eyes to see Him. He took my dirty rags away, clothed me in His robe, and welcomed me to feast with Him. ME. And if that wasn’t enough, He calls me His beloved! His friend! His child! His sister!
I will never, ever, be able to wrap my head around that. Ever.
I sit at His table, and His righteousness is so bright that it blazes away the blackness of my own deeds and heart. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect or good now. I’m not. But I will keep my eyes on Him, and stay in that light that covers every stain. I will cling to Him, because He is the place where all the accusations, the guilt, the penalty- it’s where they become dust and blow away. There’s no power in any accusation anymore. There’s no wage to pay. There’s no sting in death. There is only feasting with Him.
So that’s the plan. It’s the only thing I can do. I will be joyful. I will sing. I will love. I will be as much like Him as I can, for as long as I can, until this world has ended and the new one begins.
I don’t know why He reached down to saved me. I don’t know why He placed a seat for me at His table. But I know this. There are many empty spaces left. The table is wide, and long, and He is seeking more of His beloveds to fill it. Lay down your stones. Leave the nets. Come down from the tree. Look from the shadows. And live.
OH MY GOSH, HI!!!!
I can’t believe I’m back here. It’s like walking through your old high school, remembering where you ate lunch and went to pep rallies, and broke up with your boyfriend. (again!) I am filled with nostalgia, a great deal of embarrassment, and endless amusement. I learned SO HARD here, y’all.
I’m working on a writing project, which requires me to go through old blog posts. I started with the posts you never saw, those that stayed in my draft folder. I used that space to generate ideas, capture bits and pieces of prose and poetry, and to face the deepest parts of myself as a writer, a mother, a wife, a human. Most of the drafts are simply called “Untitled.” Every time I clicked a new one (there are hundreds), my heart was pounding because I didn’t know what exactly was going to appear on the screen. Maybe that’s why I’ve put this project off for so long. Revisiting the raw and broken moments in your life is hard. The Untitled posts were in a deep, hidden well, and to draw them into the light was scary.
As I clicked year after year, I felt that girl. I remembered her. I marveled at her creativity and pithiness. I wept at her pain and struggles. Oh what tenderness I have for this me of long ago. So very many things to learn, and so many of them learned the hard way.
But here I am. Walking down these quiet halls where so much of my life happened, and I can’t be sad. Because I am absolutely tripping over the beautiful moments here. There are echoes of everything, all the laughter, all the adventure, all the aches and pains of growing up– it’s around every corner and bend. It was my place, and I filled it to the brim.
So I’ll be spending a little time here. I have a lot of looking back to do. I need to sort through some old thoughts, dust off some forgotten words, and see where remembering will lead me. Sifting through what was here before, and seeing what might be done with it today. Seems sorta like a job for a wondergirl.
See you around, friends.
What an interesting season of life I’m finding myself in. There I was, in familiar territory for so long, and suddenly, the landscape changes.
And I look down at myself, walking this new place, and I see that I am changed as well. My hands are older, I see the lines and veins that mark them. But they’ve never been stronger. My stride is more careful, but how much ground a step covers now! My eyes, are they dimmer? But they are sharper! Things I never noticed before are so clear to me now.
And my words. Friends, they are a whisper, but they are deeper and wider in my soul than they’ve ever been before. There is a well of words in me and I’m hauling them up by the bucket. I’ll pour these quiet words out on this new ground and see what springs up.
Life never ceases to surprise me. GOD never ceases to surprise me. He brings us into new places, new versions of ourselves, just when we least expect it. No matter how many times He’s done it before, I am always amazed at how He shifts the ground beneath my feet. He gave me a new space within and without to live in for a while. And when it’s done, He’ll give me another, and another, until the journey is done and the last bucket comes up.
This new place has already taught me its first lesson. Time is just the Path, and we make it beautiful and green by what we pour out along the way. So pour while you can, make the way abundant and alive. Because the changes you leave in your wake are far more important than the changes to a mortal body just traveling through.
Whatever is in your bucket, pour it out. Let something amazing spring up, and watch your landscape change.
It’s a little box at the top of my defunct blog. It says WRITE and there’s a little plus sign beside it. Waiting.
It’s very direct.
WRITE.
You know what I’ve been doing for the last hour? Going through the old drafts that I never published on this blog. The real stuff. The things that were too raw, too high or too low to share. These posts are like the road signs that led to the end of this blog. But bigger than that- so much bigger than just the demise of a silly blog. It was the end of allowing myself to say what was important, what mattered. Each unpublished word was a step closer to a self imposed silence that has just… diminished me.
I’ve been struggling for a while now. I’ve been feeling lost. Like the lines around me are so finely drawn that I couldn’t see myself anymore. What a mess to confess. I need to have everything firmly in place, and to admit that I don’t feels like a poor reflection on everything and everybody that matters. Pride, shame, guilt, SIN – they’ve blurred my edges. Though I’ve had every reason to be happy, to be fulfilled and satisfied, I’ve just been lost.
I think God brought me through this last year to face some hard truths about myself and how I’ve got to stop looking for other people to make me happy, to validate me. All those things are temporary, and they fade away. They are earthly. They fail. I’ve been trying so hard to earn what can’t be bought, or to find it in places it can’t be found.
Why say all this? Because I can’t be the only one. I can’t be the only woman who has been marching through this Parade of Days, burying the struggle beneath the millions of things to do while the sun is shining. As I’ve been trying to find my way through this, I’ve been looking for women on the other side of it. Some sign that it’s passable, that it’s normal, that I’ll be okay. And I just couldn’t find the blog posts, y’all. I couldn’t find her. I don’t think it’s because I invented this particular season of life. I just think we don’t talk about it because we’re so ashamed of it. I know I am.
Anyway, this is for the future woman, this is for my sisters and my friends and my daughter and anybody else that needs to hear it when they get to this part of the road. Yes, it’s hard. You thought the hard parts were all behind you, and this one may have caught you off guard. You may stumble, when you thought you’d fly. You could lose your way, and be scared and lonely and angry. You may not recognize where you are, or WHO you are.
But He won’t leave you there. He’ll come and find you, little lamb. He’ll take you to a place you know, and He’ll show you who you are again. He never fails to find us when we’re lost.
So tonight, I won’t put this in the DRAFT pile. I’ll publish the hard things. For you, and for me. And I’ll come back, and I’ll hit the write button again, and again, and again. Because there are so many things to say, lines to draw around myself again, truths that may be raw but real, and it’s time. It’s time to WRITE.
I stayed behind for a moment, gathering my purse and books from the car. The kids all ran ahead, because we were *almost* late for co-op (again.) I stepped into the lobby of the building, and there you were with a sheepish grin on your face “I can stand to be a little late to my class, but I just can’t stand not saying goodbye to you!!” You gave me a quick, fierce hug, and ran off to your first grade class.
And I was just overcome with the blessing of being your mom.
Things have been tough lately. We have had some setbacks and disappointments that you know nothing about. We’ve been stressed and discouraged, and I’m doing my best to keep y’all from seeing it. I’ll be honest, I’ve been feeling a little forgotten by God. Like my prayers are bouncing around the room, not getting enough airspeed to break this atmosphere. And as I trudged into this day, with the weight of these troubles bearing down on me, you reminded me that I hit the MOM JACKPOT.
You just love me. I mean, you LOVE ME. Unconditionally, constantly, visibly, sweetly, genuinely, you love me. And that love swept me higher today, gave me a gust of wind under my wings at a time when gravity had been pulling hard.
God hasn’t forgotten me. Silly me. He gave me YOU, and there’s so much heaven in that gift that you just lift me right up.
Today, you took the hymnal from the pew and looked up the next song, and placed a marker in it so we would be ready when the music started. Then you reached for the hymnal beside your dad, and did the same for him. After replacing the hymnal, you patted his arm lovingly.
And my eyes filled up with tears. Because there’s no way I can remember all these moments. No way to hang on to every kind gesture of your young heart, every funny thing you say, all the times when you are so uniquely you! I can’t memorize the smallness of your hands, (they keep changing) or the silly dance moves, or the zillion hilarious lego creations you share with me.
But don’t you think for one minute that I’m not trying. I’m soaking up these days like rain in the desert. My mind is constantly documenting and cataloging; I’m your “mamarazzi” but subtle and quiet-like. I can never capture the true spirit of the moment in my memory though. And that’s what made me cry today. I’m gonna miss this. I’m gonna miss this so bad.
So if when you do a sweet thing, you notice tears in my eye, that’s why. Because I never want to forget who you are today. Because I’m trying so hard to hold onto the experience, and I know the memory can’t hold a candle to the real thing. Because I’m your mama, and you’re my boy, but one day you’ll be so much more than that. Because your hands won’t stay little and one day, your daddy and I will have to look up our own music.
But I blink back the tears, take another mental picture, and enjoy the real life moment of Now. We sing together, your hand on one side of the book, and mine on the other, and I know every minute is a gift from God.
There are words nearly ripe for the harvest. They are beginning to hang heavy on the tree of my soul, ready to be plucked down and savored. We have labored at life so fully this year, with mostly sunshine and busyness, though there were days of rain and stillness as well. But every kind of moment is necessary to the nourishment of Things to Say, and I cannot begrudge the rainy season it’s moment.
I am eager, eyeing this bounty to come. It’s been a long season of quiet, and it’s nearly to feast.
I mailed this letter to my brother today. I wonder if the mailman will notice the verses. Or the prison official who will read the letter, checking for violations. Or my brother’s cellmates. I hope they all will.
I used colored pens because I don’t know how many vivid colors he gets to see in a day. I wrote in colors because God’s word should be written in a rainbow, because it’s full of promise and hope. I wrote in colors because black ink is too institutional, and he has enough of that for now.
I had hoped, after last time, that the only things I would mail him again would be Christmas cards and birthday packages, but this is where we are. There is a number after his name again. Letters are now the lifeline to the outside world. They replace hugs and Fourth of July picnics, and beach trips. They remind him that we haven’t forgotten him, but they also remind him that life can’t wait for him and it just keeps going. I imagine he reads letters from home with a mixture of dread and longing, with gratitude and resentment, with hope and regret.
Maybe not yet, though. He hasn’t been there long. It can take a while to open your eyes, to heal from these self inflicted wounds, to shake off the haze of disasters you’ve created. To feel things again… that’s a big part of the battle.
But, when that day comes, maybe these bright words of peace and forgiveness will shine. Maybe they’ll get him through the day. Maybe they’ll grow in him and fill up the empty places he’s tried to satisfy with the poor substitutions of this world. Because His Word can do anything. It made stars and heavens and life and time. It parted seas, raised the dead, closed the lion’s jaws. His Word creates all, conquers all, restores all, saves all, sustains all. There’s nothing it can’t do.
so…
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and IN HIS WORD I put my hope.
Ps. 130:5
Goodness gracious. Time does get away from me! I’m going to make a grab for it and put it in a neck hold for just a minute so we can catch up. Ready? And GO
Chickens? Good. Finally starting to pick up with egg laying again, after seriously calling it in this winter. Major slackers in the coop. Some of my girls are getting on up in the years, so their production is dropping off. And cold, wet weather with short days do not make a plethora of eggs. However, I do have about 10 or 12 young hens who are not far from joining the rotation. They’re all wild as can be, too, because I haven’t spent much time with them. Like, they have returned to the feral ways of their Jungle Fowl ancestors. It’s tribal in there. CRAY-CRAY. But, as long as they lay, they stay. Actually, that sounds like a motivational sign I need to paint for the coop. You Lay, You Stay. Ha.
After losing my sweet Annabel to a possum (don’t even, I still can’t), we decided to get a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD). Actually, he’s half Great Pyrenees, so we got half of an LGD. 🙂 But so far, so good. His name is Pete and he is a giant goofy baby and we love him. I’ll have to put some pictures up. He barks at everything that has ever existed or will exist, so we haven’t seen any possums in months. RIP, Annabel.
King Pen has taken over many of the chicken duties for me like a CHAMP. I’ve been pretty wrapped up in some other projects, which is why you aren’t seeing pictures of chickens flooding your FB and Instagram feeds from me. I’ll be glad when things settle down and I can hang out in the coop more. There’s drama going on that I just KNOW I am missing. And there ain’t no drama like chicken drama, I kid you not.
As for other projects, the kids are involved in a production of Mary Poppins and that means my world is revolving around rehearsals and I CAN’T STOP SINGING SPOONFUL OF SUGAR. For months, guys. And we speak in proper upper class British accents now, all the time, because once ‘you staht, you con’t stop, deah.’ But it’s fun. Kids are working hard and I’m burning up the roads and it’ll all be awesome and fun and wonderful and you just keep saying that over and over and over for three months. Ha.
We’re also doing another, smaller show, and this one I’m actually in. (I know, I’m ridiculous). But it’s singing!! And speaking!! And dancing!! And with my daughter!! So, add another night (or two) of rehearsals to the week.
And now I’m embarrassed, because there’s a teeny tiny bit more that I’m doing. One night a week, I’m taking a beginner’s American sign language class. I’ve been learning on my own for a while, but really needed an instructor and classroom setting. It’s about the coolest thing I’VE EVER DONE. I show up every Tuesday on the front row with my pencil super sharp and my book highlighted and I do a few stretches before class to warm up. (I wish I was kidding. But I’m not. I am that much the nerd.)
So, that’s what’s up with me. My dance ticket is full, full, full, but it’s all good. Sorry I’ve been so absent! I’ll try to sneak away periodically and update my blog, so don’t delete the bookmark just yet. 🙂
Happy Friday, y’all!
Oh no, an hour slipped by me. We inch closer to midnight, and the gears are just beginning to move. I spent too much time in front of the white page, trying to make the cursor stop blinking.
What to write? Oh, write what you know, they say so casually, as if it’s just that simple and obvious. What do I know? How huge is this question? Isn’t that what we are always trying to figure out? What do I know of this life? What have I gained here, what’s the reason for it all? Just write that.
Ha! Write the Great Big Point of Everything. The thing you have learned on this journey of domestic ordinariness that will stop the cursor from it’s winking state of readiness– and GO.
Okay. Maybe they don’t mean, write all you know. Maybe I’ll just write what I know today.
Today, I know that a picture of my brother smiling almost made me cry. If I could make a moment stay by sheer force of will, this one wouldn’t move an inch. How hard we’re holding on, now that we’ve got him.
What else do I know today?
I know that I should wear my hair down more often. I know that my five year old thinks I’m beautiful with my hair down, even if I’m in yoga pants and a boring shirt and don’t have makeup on. I know that the prettiest kind of pretty you can be is when you are doing it for the enjoyment of those who love you. That the prettiest pretty isn’t about being admired or lusted after or meeting the approval of the hungry, insatiable world. Maybe that’s the kind of pretty you don’t begin to understand until there are laugh lines to underscore the word. Until there are gray streaks to catch the light, or fuller curves to hug into. Maybe it’s the only kind of pretty that sticks.
I know that I need to sit and talk more often with a true friend for a few hours in a bookstore, in REAL LIFE. I need to recharge, to be genuine, to laugh and bare something of my soul to another human being. I know this because when I spent my evening doing this very thing with a dear friend, my spirit was buoyant as it hasn’t been in a long time. I’m working so hard on growing friendships in my life, and to be honest, sometimes I’m impatient. I want the doors to be opened already, and the walls to come down. But that takes time. So, to enjoy the company of a seasoned friend– well that is a rest for the weary soul! I will not wait so long again.
I know that I need to turn the radio off more often. I need to stop placing barricades to keep my mind from wandering. Maybe it’s society, the modern world, our growing unease of quiet and stillness. Whatever it is, when I forgot to turn on the radio in the car today, my mind meandered all over the place, suddenly free from mind numbing restraints. Ideas raced about like newborn colts in my head. I thought thoughts, all kinds of ’em. Dusty corners of my brain were shocked into activity. And this truly scared me. Because I didn’t know I’d been downsizing up there. And if I’m doing it, I’m betting you are, too. Life is too loud, and we can’t hear ourselves think anymore. So, that’s a thing I know today. I need to let it be quiet sometimes, so my thoughts have a chance to be heard.
The last thing I know today is that it’s my bedtime. Well past it. And I’ve learned all the things I can fit in for this day. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll know more, and it’ll be worth writing about.
G’nite, all.
Hi blog. You’re still up. I knew you would be.
I was just thinking tonight, what if I said all the words again? All. the. words. What if I pretended it was the good old days, when I painted my life across these pages with the biggest brush I had? Wide, bold strokes and reckless abandon. Carefree, if a bit careless at times. What would happen if I let the writer out a bit?
Dare I?
It’s after midnight. It’s certainly hard to contain her when all the darlings are asleep, except the cat who meows in the windowsill for a late night snack.
Worth a try, he says.
Catch a mouse, I say. (He is not as much a darling as some)
So, focus.
Writing.
Here’s the thing. Life is fully more complicated than I ever imagined it to be. Each word I say has a string tied to it and on the other end is a person. I can’t just go around tugging strings and tangling up my people. But, if I am careful, perhaps a little wiggle won’t hurt.
I went on a bicycle ride this afternoon. With the oldest in charge, I left my phone on the counter. Mostly, I couldn’t figure out how to carry it. But a little inside part of me needed to be off the grid, needed to be the Person Who Wasn’t Answering Questions.
It was nice. And scary, to be honest. Who is answering the Questions if not me? What if there is an urgent Question that needs answering and I am off gaily pedaling these country roads? Might the world explode if I become a Person Who Isn’t Answering Questions?! Will this mad experiment of a solo bike ride off the grid be the downfall of civilization as we know it?
It was not.
And so, I conclude that it must be okay to be that Person sometimes, who does not Answer Questions. I suspect, it might be necessary to my sanity to occasionally be that Person. I could let someone else have a turn Answering the Questions. A short turn, anyway.
Next string.
I am learning ASL. Each day I practice, I am more excited. And then I hang around my deaf friends, and I am dismayed at how very little I know. This keeps happening, and I am learning to laugh at myself. I’ll probably never know enough to be much of a friend, but I will keep on baking muffins and inviting them over and signing ridiculously slow. I keep signing wrong things that amuse them (and me), which makes me smile. This is a happy string.
Onward.
My brother is home and he is doing well. We make jokes sometimes now. Every little positive communication is a very big deal. To him, to me- to anyone who is coming out the other side of active addiction. A little pat on the back, a shared laugh, a nice hug– they are like moments dipped in gold. They are bright and so very valuable. So we continue to pan for them, shaking the rocks and the soil out of the way, looking for that glint of something special. The pile grows. Perhaps we may be rich yet.
Another string.
My daughter is hoping for some pink highlights in her hair. I was not told this question would be on the test. (!) It’s nowhere on the syllabus, I’m quite sure of it. I’ve looked front and back and I guess I’ll just have to wing it. I’ll make an educated guess (Option C is always a good choice, they say), and hope for bonus questions in case I get this one wrong. Pink. Hm.
Next. (Maybe last- I’m finally getting sleepy and the cat quit asking for a midnight snack.)
I was reading the last chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire aloud to the kids today. It was so hard not to cry, but I couldn’t, because if I cried, they wouldn’t experience the story itself, but rather, MY feelings. So I resolved myself. I would feel all the feels (see how current and trendy I am) on the inside, but I would not compromise the integrity of my story telling by showing it on the outside. I swallowed back the lump in my throat, and blinked away the tears. I would not forget my sacred duty as a deliverer of words, especially those to be heard for the first time. I dove in and read with all the fullness I possessed. I feel so many things, but I will not lose the story. Because, at the heart of it, that’s what I want to do. Give them the story, and let them feel and experience what they will, on their own. It’s the best way. It’s authentic.
I think this could be important in more ways than my scarecrow brain can put together right now. So that’s how I know, it’s time to sleep. It is one a.m. and the cat has abandoned his perch. The writer is pacified and drowsy and slightly alarmed at the clock. (see what I did there)
G’nite all. Happy dreams from a blog not quite abandoned. Not yet.
WonderGirl and the Sift 